The Second Saladin

43

At last there was peace.

Ulu Beg slept a great while, arising to cleanse himself and to pray. He slept, he ate. He lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling. Hours passed, days perhaps.

“We will simply have to go again,” Speshnev said in his crisp English, their common language.

“Okay,” said Ulu Beg.

“A vest,” said Speshnev. “A vest that can stop a Skorpion from close range. What a fine American invention.”

“The head. Next time the head.”

“Of course.”

“But when?”

“Soon, my friend. But for now, relax. Enjoy this place.”

“Where are we?”

“In the State of Maryland, on a peninsula. This old estate was built by a man who made millions of dollars manufacturing — cars? airplanes? washing machines? No. Mustard! For sausages. Ten thousand acres, gardens, pools, tennis courts, a nineteen-bedroom house, two guest houses, a collection of exquisite paintings, Chippendale furniture, rare old books. From mustard! And now the taxes are so high, only the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics can afford them!”

The fat Russian smiled with great appreciation of his own humor; he had spoken with such precision that Ulu Beg was certain it was a treasured speech, delivered a thousand times before. He saw from the Russian’s expectant eyes that he was presumed to see the wit in it too, and he smiled politely, although he didn’t know what this “mustard” was.

Rewarded, the Russian sat back. They were in an opulent bedroom of a guest cottage down a path from the main house. Outside, a pond in which swans glided gave way to a marsh. And from the front one could look and see three distinct zones: a meadow, a marsh, and a sparkling body of water, flat and calm. This world was green and blue — kesk o sheen in the Kurdish — and quiet. A gentle breeze frequently moved across it; it was a vision he took great sustenance from.

“I am still overcome with what you managed to accomplish,” the Russian said. “You traveled across a foreign country to strike your blow. Then, having done so, you fled through an extensive manhunt. And when we finally made contact, you were planning your new attack. You are an extraordinary fellow.”

The Russian’s technique was to flatter excessively. Ulu Beg had grown used to it; still, he wondered how much steel was beneath all this flab. The Russian had gray eyes — kind eyes, really — and blondish hair that in some lights was almost white. He wore rumpled suits and moved comically, yet this excess weight seemed also to conceal great strength. The Palestinians who had helped train Ulu Beg at the Raz Hilal Camp near Tokra, in Libya, called him, for reasons Ulu Beg never understood, Allahab, meaning, literally, The Flame. Ulu Beg took this to refer to the purity of his passion, his strength.

“Do you need anything? A woman? A boy? We can arrange anything.”

“I am content,” said the Kurd. He was somewhat offended; he was no buggering Arab. “Some rest. Freedom from pretending. Then another chance. This time I will not fail.”

“Of course. The secret of my success — which is considerable, I might add — is simple. They ask me in Moscow, ‘Speshnev, how do you do it?’ ‘It’s easy,’ I tell them. ‘Quality people.’ I use them here. I use them in Mexico. I—”

Ulu Beg blinked.

“The best people,” Speshnev amplified.

“Oh.” A compliment. The man would go to any length. “You are most kind.”

“It’s only true,” Speshnev said.

Ulu Beg nodded modestly. When would this fellow leave? The Russian’s warmth and nearness were overpowering. Ulu Beg felt suffocated in love. The Russian reached and touched his shoulder.

“You are an inspirational man. Your story, your deeds, your heroism will last for centuries. Your people will make a great hero of you. They will sing songs.”

But even as this ornate thought was expressed, it seemed to evaporate. The Russian rose gloomily, went to the window. He stared out of it painfully, not seeing the marsh and the sky and the bay. Russians were said to be a moody people. How quickly they changed.

“It is the contrast,” he said. “I cannot stand it. It hurts me. It physically hurts me. The contrast between you and the other.”

He brooded on the placid landscape. In the radiant light, his hair became almost pink, the color of his jowly face.

“The other?” said Ulu Beg.

“Yes,” said Speshnev. “The man who troubles my dreams.”

“A man troubles mine too,” said Ulu Beg.

“But not the same man. You think of the larger betrayal, the historical betrayal, the political betrayal. Of your people, as an act of state by the Americans to advance their own cause. You think of Danzig and the justice denied you, the justice deferred. You think of cold-blooded calculations made thousands of miles away by men in suits looking at maps. I think of something hotter, more immediately personal.”

Ulu Beg followed nothing of these Russian ravings, moody wanderings through a gloomy landscape. The intensity was surprising, for in his normal life the man was the jovial type.

“I think of a man with a talent, a great genius. The talent is for evil. He is an artist, inspired, a poet.”

Ulu Beg looked at him uncomprehendingly. Yet the Russian seemed not to notice and plunged madly on.

“You know, in this business it is not uncommon to get to know your opponent. Most often he is a chap such as yourself — decent, hardworking, a man you can respect, a man whom you could befriend were it not for the obvious politics. Yet once in a career one encounters what can only be called this talent for evil. It is not cold; it is hot. It is a kind of lust or need or obsession. A fervor. An absolutism that has nothing whatsoever to do with cause. It has no motive other than selfhood. It is the highest human vanity. I speak of a man who would sell his brother or torture someone helpless, not for politics or adventure but purely for the sensation of ego triumphant.”

The short man gestured violently. Ulu Beg watched him, befuddled and unsure. Where was all this taking them? What significance had it? He had a terrible feeling of increasing complexity — what had been so simple must now take on another dimension.

“I speak,” said the Russian, “of the man you call Jardi.”

“But, Colonel—”

“Stop. If you thought you knew this man, you do not. You know only a part of him, a part he allowed you to see. You know the soldier. But let me tell you another story.”

Ulu Beg nodded.

“After we captured him, I girded myself for the struggle, knowing full well how tough he’d be. He was, after all, an operative, a professional, for the American intelligence service. But such was not the case; in fact, exactly the opposite happened. He saw immediately how tight a bind he was in, where his best interests lay. And thus he did more than cooperate or collaborate. He gave us your group, for his own skin, but also, I tell you truly, for his own pleasure, his own pride. I confess I was shaken by this, perhaps even intimidated. I knew I should kill him, take him off the surface of the earth. Yet I hesitated; who could kill a helpless man? That indecision cost me dearly. He quickly insinuated his way into the favor of the Iraqis. I couldn’t touch him. In fact, the last twist, the helicopter deceit: that was his idea. I argued against it — we had won, after all, by then. But no, he insisted on a gesture. Think of the future, he told the Iraqis; here is a chance to make a gesture of such contempt, no Kurd would face the light for a thousand years. After all, he maintained, Ulu Beg is famous; let his end become famous as well.

“I tried to convince them, to dissuade them, to make them see reason. Be reasonable, I pleaded. But he had won them over.

“Do you know no Russian pilot would fly that mission? No, our boys would have no part of it. The Iraqis flew it themselves. And Chardy went along!

“Naturally, I lodged a formal protest. But then I was arrested. He had me arrested! He had convinced the Iraqis that my opposition to the mission proved I was a traitor to their cause.

“They took me to a cellar, Ulu Beg, in that same prison where I found you years later. And Chardy interrogated me. Ulu Beg, can you imagine what he used on me? He used a blowtorch. He burned six holes in my body. I fought him for six days; I fought with all my might and will, Ulu Beg. And finally, when I was nearly dead, he brought me to the point of confession. I would have signed anything at that point. But somehow I found the will to resist one last hour. I lasted six and a half days, Ulu Beg, under the crudest of torments. Insects picked at my wounds. He mocked my beliefs; he used the name of the woman I loved against me. It was a profane performance. I was only saved at the desperate intervention of my own people, who at last located me. Chardy disappeared soon thereafter. I never saw him after the cell.”

He looked at Ulu Beg. He was perspiring quite heavily now, in the memory of his ordeal.

“You see how our quests are united, Ulu Beg. You will kill Joseph Danzig. And I will kill Paul Chardy.”